How to boost your pay aside from your current salary

How do you increase your takehome pay if you can’t get your employer to increase your current hourly wage or salary?

One option is to stay in the same job but also look for a second.

A second is to work overtime hours. Beware that if you’re salaried, then you probably won’t be paid for those overtime hours, but some employees will negotiate a change to their status from exempt (paid salary) to non-exempt (paid hourly) so that they can be paid extra when they work overtime. ,

A third is to negotiate a commuting reimbursement or a perk that’s essentially money in your pocket. Even if your salary or hourly wage don’t increase, if your employer is paying you more money overall, that’s the same as getting a raise.

The bottom line is that the vast majority of employers want to pay their employees fairly, but few employers and employees know exactly what “fair” translates into when talking about wages. Employees who want a pay raise should do that research and then present their findings in writing to their manager.

If you’re a customer service representative without a high school degree but with three years of experience and you work in Long Island, look at sites like Payscale and Glassdoor for people with the same qualifications as you and what they’re earning. Look on sites like Indeed and CollegeRecruiter.com for job postings for positions like what you have and what they’re paying. Present that information to your manager to substantiate your claim that you should receive a raise. 

What you want to get paid or what you feel you need to be paid in order to pay your bills aren’t nearly as impactful as what you would be paid if you were to leave your employer and be hired by another organization that is basically across the street and for the same role.